Background: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widely used for multiple reasons such as treatment of diseases and their symptoms, empowerment, self-care, disease prevention, dissatisfaction, adverse effects or cost of conventional medicine, perception of compatibility with beliefs, and idiosyncrasy. This study investigated CAM use in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD).
Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted with 240 eligible patients with CKD in the PD program. By applying the I-CAM-Q-questionnaire, the frequency, level of satisfaction, and reasons for CAM use were explored, and the demographic and clinical data of users and non-users were analyzed. Data analysis included descriptive analysis, Student's t-test, Mann-Whitney U, chi-square, and Fisher tests.
Results: The main types of CAM used were herbal medicine, and chamomile was the most commonly used. To improve the state of well-being was the main reason for use, the attributable benefit of CAM was high, and only a low percentage of users reported side effects. Only 31.8% of the users informed their physicians.
Conclusion: The use of CAM is popular among renal patients, and physicians are not adequately informed; in particular, the CAM type ingested represents a risk for drug interactions and toxicity.
Keywords: alternative medicine; chronic kidney disease; complementary medicine; peritoneal dialysis.